Indy can seat something like 250,000 people, and even if a lot of the fans didn't get GA (like me) and run around in the infield all day, the 60,000ish that come out on race day wouldn't come close to filling the main grandstand.

If you want a scale of the place you can fit a couple Vatican Cities in the infield....and that is just the golfcourse, I doubt you would lose any track.

Its a BIG venue.

I think all were reasonably happy with 60k, happy enough for Indy to take up the option for next year.

Why don't you tell me what they ate for dinner? That would be just as relevant to my post. We're not discussing testing procedures. We're discussing the "new management" at Ducati claiming all kinds of new effort is coming to the team but their actions don't show that. Having one huge test is ridiculous. Everyone else does a test, gains some knowledge and applies that to the next test. Having a a bunch of riders on a several bikes for one day is just odd and demonstrates a lack of direction.

As for Austin. No, a couple tenths at one track will not win Ducati a championship. They are a long way from competing for a championship. However, the teams that are capable of winning championships are doing those tests. I hear "new management is bringing resources and personal to Ducati's MotoGP effort." I see the team operating just as they have for the last two years. Comments and results from Dovisioso and Hayden don't show much difference either.

We've been hearing for a year that things will be different at Ducati. They did nothing in the offseaon have done little during this season.

What they are doing differently is invisible. They are changing working processes inside Ducati Corse. They are shifting personnel around inside Ducati Corse. They are shortening communication lines inside Ducati Corse. They are actively headhunting engineers from outside Ducati Corse. From outside Italy even. I have had three people with knowledge of the situation independently confirm this to me.

Unfortunately, those changes a: are invisible to the outside world, and b: take 18 months to 2 years to take full effect. They only really started to make changes at the beginning of this year, which is why the factory team started with basically last year's bikes.

Interesting. I'm guessing result producing changes in the design would begin to show in 2015?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kropotkin

What they are doing differently is invisible. They are changing working processes inside Ducati Corse. They are shifting personnel around inside Ducati Corse. They are shortening communication lines inside Ducati Corse. They are actively headhunting engineers from outside Ducati Corse. From outside Italy even. I have had three people with knowledge of the situation independently confirm this to me.

Unfortunately, those changes a: are invisible to the outside world, and b: take 18 months to 2 years to take full effect. They only really started to make changes at the beginning of this year, which is why the factory team started with basically last year's bikes.

Interesting. I'm guessing result producing changes in the design would begin to show in 2015?

First serious change has been the work on flexibility which is starting to be introduced. Another major change due to be introduced at Misano test (don't know what yet). Bigger change in 2014, and in 2015, they should have a working, competitive motorcycle. Maybe not winning, but clearly competitive.

Here's hoping so. Too late for the biggest splash, but getting two maybe three more bikes pushing at the front will maybe keep Marc occupied a little.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kropotkin

First serious change has been the work on flexibility which is starting to be introduced. Another major change due to be introduced at Misano test (don't know what yet). Bigger change in 2014, and in 2015, they should have a working, competitive motorcycle. Maybe not winning, but clearly competitive.

Here's hoping so. Too late for the biggest splash, but getting two maybe three more bikes pushing at the front will maybe not keep Marc occupied, but at least bash fairings to contend a place on the podium...

Fixed...

__________________
My head is my only house unless it rains.D. Van Vliet

What they are doing differently is invisible. They are changing working processes inside Ducati Corse. They are shifting personnel around inside Ducati Corse. They are shortening communication lines inside Ducati Corse. They are actively headhunting engineers from outside Ducati Corse. From outside Italy even. I have had three people with knowledge of the situation independently confirm this to me.

Unfortunately, those changes a: are invisible to the outside world, and b: take 18 months to 2 years to take full effect. They only really started to make changes at the beginning of this year, which is why the factory team started with basically last year's bikes.

Show some healthy skepticism Krop. Suzuki was ready to come back in 2014. They had good test times. Eighteen months to two years is a ridiculous amount of time for an existing MotoGP team before seeing changes. Teams had less than two years to react to the engine limits, engine displacement changes and single tire supplier rules. Ducati shouldn't need two more years if they are serious. If they are just BSing, then two years sounds about right.

__________________
"I were riding so fast, I were sucking rabbits out of the hedges" IOM TT racer Guy Martin - Thanks to rallybug

Show some healthy skepticism Krop. Suzuki was ready to come back in 2014. They had good test times. Eighteen months to two years is a ridiculous amount of time for an existing MotoGP team before seeing changes. Teams had less than two years to react to the engine limits, engine displacement changes and single tire supplier rules. Ducati shouldn't need two more years if they are serious. If they are just BSing, then two years sounds about right.

I dont think you understand just how Bureaucratic Italians can be sometimes. The Japanese have a much better system of letting good ideas come to the top.

Show some healthy skepticism Krop. Suzuki was ready to come back in 2014. They had good test times. Eighteen months to two years is a ridiculous amount of time for an existing MotoGP team before seeing changes. Teams had less than two years to react to the engine limits, engine displacement changes and single tire supplier rules. Ducati shouldn't need two more years if they are serious. If they are just BSing, then two years sounds about right.

I would describe my attitude as sceptically* hopeful. Having seen some fairly moribund organizations from the inside myself, I am aware of just how long it can take to turn a company around. It's not the people, it is the ability of the organization to use those people effectively. Only once people have accepted that things are going to be done differently do they start to get things done.

Going off on a tangent, it reminds me a lot of my ex-girlfriend, when she was a teacher. She taught 4 and 5 year olds, taking them as they first entered school full time. She would spend the first 6 weeks of each new school year teaching virtually nothing, just imposing structure and getting the kids used to the idea that at a given time, they would be expected to behave in a specific way: be quiet, listen, work, paint, play, eat. In the following six weeks, the kids would catch up on all of the stuff they had missed out on in the previous period. The kids would leave her class better educated than kids from taught by other teachers, because she had organized the class better and imposed the correct structure.

That's what's going on at Ducati now. Of course, there's still no guarantee of a successful outcome, but at least they are actually trying to fix the real, underlying problem, instead of dicking around with the bike.

* I have taught myself to use American spellings and phrasings, but the two words which, as a Brit, I cannot bring myself to spell incorrectly are sceptic and its derivatives, and aluminium. Sorry, but there are limits to everything!

I would describe my attitude as sceptically* hopeful. Having seen some fairly moribund organizations from the inside myself, I am aware of just how long it can take to turn a company around. It's not the people, it is the ability of the organization to use those people effectively. Only once people have accepted that things are going to be done differently do they start to get things done.

Going off on a tangent, it reminds me a lot of my ex-girlfriend, when she was a teacher. She taught 4 and 5 year olds, taking them as they first entered school full time. She would spend the first 6 weeks of each new school year teaching virtually nothing, just imposing structure and getting the kids used to the idea that at a given time, they would be expected to behave in a specific way: be quiet, listen, work, paint, play, eat. In the following six weeks, the kids would catch up on all of the stuff they had missed out on in the previous period. The kids would leave her class better educated than kids from taught by other teachers, because she had organized the class better and imposed the correct structure.

That's what's going on at Ducati now. Of course, there's still no guarantee of a successful outcome, but at least they are actually trying to fix the real, underlying problem, instead of dicking around with the bike.

* I have taught myself to use American spellings and phrasings, but the two words which, as a Brit, I cannot bring myself to spell incorrectly are sceptic and its derivatives, and aluminium. Sorry, but there are limits to everything!

Get your ex-girlfriend a job at Ducati. She might like the colour red.

__________________
"I were riding so fast, I were sucking rabbits out of the hedges" IOM TT racer Guy Martin - Thanks to rallybug

I dont think you understand just how Bureaucratic Italians can be sometimes. The Japanese have a much better system of letting good ideas come to the top.

I have never been to Japan but I am sure that's true.
Have you ever seen the movie "Brazil" from Terry Gilliam? Sure is a masterpiece, but it did never really breakout in Italy, you know why? Because we were (and are) used to that kind of "grotesque" bureaucracy. Nothing to be amazed of for us...
Anyway, I'm sure things are gonna change in Borgo Panigale. But I think that from now on, it will be Honda time. And for a while. There is nothing at this moment that can stop their commitment for supremacy but Lorenzo's talent.

__________________
My head is my only house unless it rains.D. Van Vliet

Very good. Here's hoping for a good teacher for the 5-year olds.
I can't blame my misspellings on anything other than laziness on my part.
OK, once in a while the iPhone.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kropotkin

I would describe my attitude as sceptically* hopeful. Having seen some fairly moribund organizations from the inside myself, I am aware of just how long it can take to turn a company around. It's not the people, it is the ability of the organization to use those people effectively. Only once people have accepted that things are going to be done differently do they start to get things done.

Going off on a tangent, it reminds me a lot of my ex-girlfriend, when she was a teacher. She taught 4 and 5 year olds, taking them as they first entered school full time. She would spend the first 6 weeks of each new school year teaching virtually nothing, just imposing structure and getting the kids used to the idea that at a given time, they would be expected to behave in a specific way: be quiet, listen, work, paint, play, eat. In the following six weeks, the kids would catch up on all of the stuff they had missed out on in the previous period. The kids would leave her class better educated than kids from taught by other teachers, because she had organized the class better and imposed the correct structure.

That's what's going on at Ducati now. Of course, there's still no guarantee of a successful outcome, but at least they are actually trying to fix the real, underlying problem, instead of dicking around with the bike.

* I have taught myself to use American spellings and phrasings, but the two words which, as a Brit, I cannot bring myself to spell incorrectly are sceptic and its derivatives, and aluminium. Sorry, but there are limits to everything!